According to the information received by AzerTAj, the Nelson Resources Limited Company in Kazakhstan has announced that it has arranged for its subsidiary Nelson Buzachi Petroleum B.V. to receive a four-year financing agreement for an oil prepayment facility, with a principal amount of up to $70 million, through the Commodity Structured Finance Group of BNP Paribas (Suisse) S.A. The financing will repay a bridge loan used to acquire the Company's 50 percent interest in the Kazakhstan's North Buzachi field. It is arranged as an advance payment to Buzachi Petroleum for future deliveries of crude oil from the North Buzachi field. The payments in the form of crude oil deliveries will be a minimum monthly quantity of 15,000 tons (102,551 barrels). Nelson Resources Limited Chairman and CEO Nick Zana said, "We continue to be excited by the potential of this oil field, and I am very pleased that we have secured long-term financing on such favorable terms. We are delighted to join forces with such strong financial partners in this transaction, BNP Paribas and Vitol, both of whom are leaders in their respective areas of activity."

Nelson Resources Limited owns 50 percent of Kazakhoil Aktobe LLP, a 50/50 joint venture between Nelson and KazMunaiGas, the national oil company of Kazakhstan, which is developing the Alibekmola and Kozhasai fields. The company also owns a 50 percent participatory interest in the North Buzachi oil field located in western Kazakhstan (50 percent Nelson, 50 percent CNPC International (Buzachi) Inc.). Last month Nelson purchased 60 percent of Chaparral Resources Inc., which has a 60 percent controlling interest in the joint stock company Karakudukmunai, with the remaining 40 percent being held by KazMunaiGas. The company also holds an option to acquire a minimum 25 percent participatory interest in two Caspian Sea offshore blocks, Zhambai South and South Zaburunye. Lebanon's Electricity and Water Ministry Director-General Fadi Comeir said that the country hopes to produce oil and gas "within two years. The discovery of oil reserves in Lebanon will constitute a primary production source in the future. Because indicators...have shown the possibility of the presence of oil on Lebanese waters, Lebanon will become an oil and gas producing country in the near future."

Since the end of the country's 15-year civil war in 1990 Lebanon has undergone a continuous energy crisis, with many parts of the country still undergoing power outages. Lebanon is limiting its energy plans to oil and gas; Comeir hopes to increase Lebanon's use of renewable energy sources and increasingly convert the country's power plants and industry to cheaper and cleaner-burning natural gas. Before OPEC officials and various U.N. representatives, Comeir has proposed that Lebanon undertake a 10-year plan to build new dams that would double the nation's supply of hydroelectricity. They also noted that the state-owned electric company would benefit from restructuring and "a partnership with the private sector." Comeir said that Lebanon intends to construct a natural gas pipeline linking Syrian fields to Lebanon's northern Badawi plant; a pipeline extension would later connect the country's southern plants in Zahrani and Tyre. Lebanon's state-owned electric company, Electricite du Liban, which accounts for at least 24 percent of Lebanon's energy consumption, currently loses about $400 million annually.

Russian deputy foreign minister and presidential envoy for Caspian issues Viktor Kalyuzhnyi has urged Azerbaijan to increase the amount of crude it exports annually via the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline from its present level of 2.5 million tons. While Kalyuzhnyi stressed that the Russian government does not dispute the right of Caspian producers to choose how their export routes, he emphasized that,since its 2001 commissioning, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium is still operating at considerably less than its throughput capacity. Azerbaijan has informed Russia that it will discontinue suing the Bak-Novorossiisk pipeline after the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline become operational in May 2005. Kalyuzhnyi cautioned that the BTC pipeline might not prove economically viable, at which point Azerbaijan will be forced to seek alternatives, including the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline. Russia has received tons of used nuclear waste from Bulgaria's Kozlody nuclear power plant. Experts from the Zheleznogorsk mining and chemical combine in Krasnoyarsk Kray have started to unload the spent nuclear fuel, which will be transferred to a water storage pool. After 20 years radiation levels will decline sufficiently to allow the fuel to be stored in a dry facility. The terms of the storage agreement are unclear as the Russian Ministry of Nuclear Energy in 2003 noted that the storage of foreign nuclear wastes on Russian territory is banned by many local legislatures.

While Novorossiisk remains Russia's prime oil-exporting port on the Black Sea, Tuapse has also been increasing its energy exports. During January-May 2004 Tuapse Commercial Sea Port handled a total of 7.9 million tons of oil products and cargo, a 10.5 percent increase from the same period in 2003. Tuapse's exports of oil and petroleum products grew by 7.4 percent to 5.64 million tons; gasoline exports rose to 913.5 thousand tons. Coal and coke exports rose 30 percent to 1.38 million tons. During May 2004 Tuapse's oil and petroleum exports dropped 15 percent to 1.042.8 million tons. Turkey 's Ceyhan Mediterranean terminal, used by Iraq for export, began on June 7 to pumping 500,000 barrels of Iraqi oil from its storage facilities to Turkish refiner Tupras' Kirikkale plant. Tupras gets oil from Ceyhan via a domestic pipeline. The Iraq-Turkey oil pipeline that ends at Ceyhan has been idle since June 1. Ceyhan is scheduled to pump an additional 500,000 barrels of Iraqi oil to Tupras Kirikkale on June 11. Beside these 1 million barrel shipments, Ceyhan has 2.5 million barrels of loadable Iraqi oil in stock. This week's Tupras shipments will conclude all Ceyhan's deliveries under the most recent Iraqi May export tender. Iraq is expected to additional hold oil export tenders once Ceyhan's stocks exceed 5 million barrels.